I found a class at Craftsy a few months ago about pizza making by Peter Reinhart. I have an artisan bread class from him too. He has a pizza blog as well. So I guess he know what he is talking about. He has some great pizza crusts and toppings recipes. According to him, to make good pizza crust, you must use a slow fermentation. When Mom and Olivia were over last week, that is what we did and the crust is great, but you must plan ahead. I didn't do that tonight, so I had to find a quicker crust, and I didn't want to do the cracker crust. I found one at King Arthur Flour. Here it is with some minor changes I made.
1 1/3 cup lukewarm water
1 Tbsp yeast
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
6 Tablespoons olive oil
Preheat the oven to 500°F with a pizza stone in the bottom. Mix together the water and yeast until the yeast dissolves. Add the remaining ingredients to the water/yeast, stirring to make a somewhat sticky dough. The dough should only be mildly sticky, and easy to work with. If it's sticking to your fingers, mix in additional flour. Divide the dough in thirds, pat each third into a disk, and place on a lightly floured piece of parchment. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, while your oven gets good and hot. Roll one piece of dough between two pieces of lightly greased parchment to make a THIN crust. Top the crust with your preferred toppings. Put the pizza, parchment and all, on the baking stone. Bake for about 6-8 minutes, until the crust is brown and the toppings are heated through. Remove from the oven and serve.
The parchment idea is amazing! We have a wood pizza peel to put the pizza's in the oven and a metal one to pull them out. We had been using flour and cornmeal to get the pizza off the peel, but it's a pain. The parchment works great. It does get a little scorched so there might be some ash in the bottom of the oven, but no big deal there.
We have some really good pizza places in Draper- Mangia, Pizzeria Limone, and Terra Mia. We decided to recreate a couple of their pizzas. The first one we copied was Mangia's Inna's Fave. Ryan said we can never complain when we go there about how expensive it is because to buy the stuff to make the pizza was around 20$ he said.
Copycat Inna's Fave (A sauceless pie with thinly sliced prosciutto, sliced figs & Gorgonzola cheese, finished with arugula & a drizzle of balsamic reduction)
Proscuitto
Fresh Figs, thinly sliced
Gorgonzola cheese
Parmesan cheese
Arugula
Balsamic Reduction (see recipe below*)
On a thin crust spread out a few slices of prosciutto. Top with sliced figs and sprinkle with cheeses. Bake until crust is browned. After pizza is cooked, top with fresh arugula and drizzle with balsamic reduction.
Ryan bought a balsamic reduction, but I didn't know it, so I made my own:
*Balsamic Reduction
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup honey
Stir balsamic vinegar and honey together in a small saucepan and place over high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer until the vinegar mixture has reduced to 1/3 cup, about 10 minutes. (Mine never got to a third cup and it took lots longer than 10 minutes- more like 15-20 min. It was still good and we used it on a Caprese salad later too.)Set the balsamic reduction aside to cool. This makes a lot more than you need - so you will have left overs for other uses!
The second pizza we made was a combo of two pizzas from Pizzeria Limone, the Limone and the Pera. We used an olive oil base from the Craftsy pizza class. Here's our version:
Limone - Pera Pizza
Herb olive oil*
Parmesan cheese
mozzarella cheese
Asiago cheese
Prosciutto chopped in small pieces
Lemons - THINLY sliced (mine were too fat and I thought I was doing them thin)
Fresh Pears - sliced
Fresh Basil
Spread a thin layer of herb olive oil on pizza crust. Sprinkle with cheeses and prosciutto. Top with lemons and pears. Bake until crust is browned. Then top with fresh basil and serve.
*Herb Olive Oil
1 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried marjoram
½ teaspoon dried or fresh rosemary needles
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder or paste
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes (optional)
Add all the ingredients together in a bowl and whisk to distribute. Taste immediately after stirring and adjust the salt, spices, and herbs to taste. Always stir or whisk just prior to adding it to any dish, as the spices tend to settle to the bottom of the bowl. This makes lots of extra too- the recipe suggests using it as a dipping oil for bread or as a base for salad dressings.
The third pizza we made was regular old pepperoni for the kids.
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